Uncovering Student Ideas

Last month I received an email from a high school biology teacher in Maine that really speaks to the power of using assessment probes to promote thinking and student discussion. I just have to share this with everyone! Read on…

“I know you probably hear stuff like this all the time, but I’m reading the ‘Lookback’ reflections that I have my classes do every 10 class blocks, and I just really loved this one by a foreign exchange student from Ghana. We did a zillion things during the cell unit, but half of her reflection had to do with two probes. This is what she said”:

” I have learnt many things these past few weeks in your biology class. With almost all the things you taught in your class, I had already learnt them in my former school but I had either forgotten or I did not really understand them when I was taught You helped me really understand them in the diverse ways in which you taught them. For instance, with the rotting apple, you did not go ahead and tell us how apples rot. You made us write what we think, get into groups, discuss what we think and finally discuss it as a class. It was through the discussion that you made us all see how the apples actually rot and finally disappear. This helped me to understand and I think I would not have understood it very well if you had just given us all the information from the start.

The “things are made of cells” activity with the pictures of things really helped me to differentiate between things that are made of cells and things that are not. You did not just tell us but made us dicuss it with our mates beforehand. This made me realize that sometimes our mates are the best people to explain things to you. it was after this discussion in groups that we discussed as a class and finally you explained the ones which we could not figure out. When I am now in doubt about whether things are made of cells, I remember the funny way one of my mates explained it in class and I am able to tell whether it is made of a cell or not.”

Maybe this “anonymous” teacher will share some more stories (I hope so!). Do others have stories to share?

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 9:28 am and is filed under Uncovering Student Ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.